


sink your teeth into forever

by blackkat



Series: ZabuRin Drabbles [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Nohara Rin, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Flirting, Humor, Light Angst, Nohara Rin Lives, Sensei Nohara Rin, Wave arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 17:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20029582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Rin is grateful to Isobu for what he’s made her. For what he’s helped her become. She’s never going to be a victim again.





	sink your teeth into forever

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Jinchuriki!RIn takes her genin team on a C rank mission to Wave.

_There’s something coming_, Isobu whispers.

Rin can feel it too. There's an edge of unfamiliar chakra on the air, bleeding into the atmosphere, caught up in the trees and water. She breathes through it, raising her face to the sky, and turns her head just enough to catch the sounds of her team behind her.

Naruto and Sasuke are arguing. What a surprise.

“Rin-sensei,” Sakura says, and a few quick trotting steps put her even with Rin. It leaves Tazuna a little more vulnerable, but Rin will bring that up later, when they're not in front of the client. “Rin-sensei, is it far?”

Rin smiles down at her, taking a step to the side so she has more room to walk. “Another day from here,” she says. “More or less. I want to stop a little early tonight, so that we can make the first boat across to Wave without having to wait.”

The relief that flickers across Sakura's face is understandable; this is their first long mission out of the village, and none of Rin's genin are used to walking so far. “Should we start looking for a campsite, then?” she asks.

Rin hums. “Not yet, I think,” she says lightly. “We’ve still got a good amount of sun left.” Raising her voice slightly, she calls, “Sasuke, Naruto, you saw that in the woods, right?”

There's a half-second of panicked silence, and then Naruto bursts out, “Of course I saw it, Rin-sensei!”

“You did _not_, dobe,” Sasuke snaps. “You had your face shoved into mine—”

“You're just jealous because I'm a better ninja and saw it first—”

Rin sighs, and wonders how Kakashi managed to wriggle out of being her co-sensei. After all his experience with Obito, surely he would know how to handle this. “Sasuke, watch the left. Naruto, the right,” she says firmly. “This is a mission. You can't spend all of it arguing.”

“Yeah,” Sakura says hotly, whipping around. “Naruto you have to be nice to—”

Rin puts a hand on her head, and gently but turns her back to face front. “Work together,” she says, gently chiding. “That means none of you are supposed to be getting mad at the others. Pay attention to your surroundings, pay attention to each other, and protect the client. Understood?”

There's a moment of sheepish silence from three sides, and then a mumbled, “Of course, Rin-sensei,” from Sakura and Naruto and a grunt from Sasuke.

At this point, Rin will take it.

She hides the roll of her eyes, adjusts the strap of the sword across her back, and tugs her fingerless gloves up a little, scanning the road ahead of them again. In her head, Isobu is still restless. Not worried, not really, but he keeps shifting, keeps looking. It’s like whatever is in the air is familiar, and Rin touches his consciousness like a tap on the shoulder, sending him a question mark.

There's a long moment of silence, carefully reserved, and then Isobu blows out a long, low sigh. _Kiri_, he sends back, and accompanying the word are flashes of a misty village, a crashing ocean and steep rocks, a swampy coast with leaning trees and dripping moss. A sense of this same chakra, pervasive and strong but subtle, right up until it isn't. _Executioner_, Isobu adds, and Rin frowns.

Kiri moving against Tazuna doesn’t make sense, but she supposes that they could simply have been hired for the job by someone with the right motivation. Kiri is notorious for taking almost any job, after all. She doesn’t like it, though; this is supposed to be an escort mission, facing bandits and similar enemies. Not Kiri nin. Her team isn't ready for that, and for a moment she debates stopping them, turning around and heading back to Konoha, but—

Well. Missions going sideways is part of life as a shinobi, and better they realize that with her here than on some mission where they're sent off alone and out of reach.

(_Obito_, she thinks, remembering the cave-in, and it still aches so many years later. Still stings, that last touch of his hand before he died, and she hadn’t been able to save him. could only transfer his eye the way he asked, then leave him to die slowly, bleeding out, crushed by tonnes of stone pressing down.

She won't—_can't_ let her team experience the same thing. She’ll do everything in her power to keep them from facing that sort of mission until they're older at the very least. They're shinobi, and she _knows_ that, but—

They're children, too. This peace will _let_ them be children, at least for longer than it did her team. And Rin will do what she can to keep things that way.)

_Feeling up to a fight?_ she asks Isobu wryly, and he chuckles, low and rumbling like the roll of rocks on an incoming tide. His power curls through the seal, sliding into her bones, and Rin contains it carefully, channels it. The physical changes rise, but she pushes them back down, not about to give away the fact that she’s ready. Just having Isobu’s power close is good enough, and she breathes out, dredges up a bright smile, and glances down at Sakura.

“How is that scroll I gave you?” she asks. “Easy to understand?”

Sakura lights up, and clearly turning her on to medical ninjutsu was a good idea. Rin had been hesitant, because Naruto has more raw power, could do greater things, but—Sakura's perfect chakra control is a hard thing to argue with. Sasuke and Naruto are learning the basics, because Rin refused to let her team leave the village or take anything more dangerous than a D-rank if they couldn’t heal themselves or each other, but Sakura has a talent the boys don’t. she seems to like it, too, which is even better.

“It’s really interesting!” Sakura says enthusiastically. “The lady at the library helped me find a really good anatomy book, and I've been memorizing all the muscle groups and the bones.”

“Good,” Rin says, pleased. Tips her head, and over Tazuna’s muttering about magic and idiots, she asks, “Naruto, will you help me make more explosive tags tonight when we camp? I want to make sure we have enough if something happens.”

“Sure!” Naruto says loudly, puffing up. “I’ll make ten hundred and beat anybody who wants to get the old man!”

“You mean a thousand,” Sasuke says acerbically, though he doesn’t take his eyes off his side of the road.

“Whatever!” Naruto snaps.

Rin strangles a sigh, and tries to think what Minato would have said. He always seemed content to let Kakashi and Obito work things out, though, and at the very least Kakashi and Obito knew how dangerous it was, being part of the war. They could recognize when to scale their arguments back, which Sasuke and Naruto haven’t seemed to learn yet.

“I have a new kata I've been meaning to show you, Sasuke,” she says, and when dark eyes flicker to her, wary, she meets them with a smile. “We can do that tonight, too. We should have time if we stop a little early. I don’t want to miss out on any training, even when we’re on a mission.”

Sasuke clicks his tongue and looks away, but he’s not stiff the way he is when he’s offended, so Rin assumes he’s all right with it. He’s so very little like Obito was, and it’s understandable, but Rin is having a hard time learning his tells. It’s frustrating, and she has to keep reminding herself that she shouldn’t be looking for Obito in him anyway. Just because they're both Uchiha means nothing, no matter what she wants to see.

“Have you ever been to Wave before, Rin-sensei?” Naruto asks, hooking his arms behind his head. “Is it nice? Is there ramen?”

“I've been there once or twice,” Rin says, but a touch more chakra bleeding into the air distracts her, makes her lift her head and focus. There's a lake ahead of them, wide water and a touch of cool wind, and if _she_ were a Kiri nin, that’s precisely where she would lie in wait.

Carefully, deliberately, she pushes down every thought of a cold, dark cell, a man carving a seal into her soul. Pushes past the memory of their desperate flight from Kiri, Kakashi’s hand in hers, and the way Isobu raged within her seal. A warning, one she almost didn’t recognize in time, but once she _did_—

Jinchuuriki can survive almost anything, if their bijuu gives them a bit of power. Isobu burned the control seal right off her heart, resigned himself to being a captive in her soul just so he wouldn’t be forced into a worse situation. He saved her, let her save herself. That’s enough of a victory to push her past the memory of what happened in Kiri itself.

Breathing in, she resettles her weapons pouch, checks the senbon in the collar of her flak jacket under the guise of brushing her hair back from her face. Poisoned senbon, because they can't hurt her, given her healing ability. Enough kunai for a much larger fight. enough chakra to burn through the ocean and still come out with reserves on the other side.

Rin is grateful to Isobu for what he’s made her. For what he’s helped her become. She’s never going to be a victim again.

Isobu laughs, rock-clatter and sea-tide. _All teeth_, he tells her, and Rin laughs a little too, because he’s said it before. _Pretty thing, all teeth_, was the first thing he ever said to her, trapped in the darkness of her soul, straining at the tattered edges of the seal. Holding in, rather than pushing out, and he’d known of Konoha, heard the whispers; after Harusame, Kiri's seal-master, he’d been wary of what would happen if he broke loose in the village. Hadn’t wanted to escape if it meant imprisonment like Shukaku’s, trapped in solitary for decades with only the company of a priest slowly going mad beside him.

Rin had been desperate, furious. A deal seemed like the only option, even though she _knew_ all the ways Kushina had been fighting the Kyuubi over the years she’d been his jailor. Knew the risks, but didn’t care, because she wanted to _live_.

She would have died for Konoha, if that was the only option, but—

It wasn’t.

Rin breathes in, breathes out. Remembers staring up into the eyes of a massive monster as it laughed, and she’d been terrified, but she’s never, ever let that stop her. It didn’t then, and nothing since has ever shaken her completely. Rocked her, yes, but she’s strong. She proved that. She’s a jinchuuriki, and she’s a kunoichi, and she’ll never be someone who needs a rescue. Never again.

In the forest, just off the road, chakra kindles, _burns_.

Half a second to react, but it’s all Rin needs. She throws herself forward, dragging water out of thin air as Isobu roars in glee, and the rising dragon meets a falling wave, blasts through it without hesitation. Within the water is a flash of metal, sun-bright and sharp, and Rin lets Isobu’s chakra snap up, growth like coral bursting into being along her arm. Like armor, like stone, it covers her forearms, hardens, and she puts the strength of his power behind her, throws an arm up, and blocks the blade.

There's a moment of absolute silence. Rin stares down the length of the massive sword, right into surprised dark eyes, and smiles.

“There you are,” she says, and shoves the blade up. Ducks under it, lashes out, and kicks him square in the gut, sending him flying back a hundred yards. The Swordsman lands hard, skidding over the grass before he finds his footing, and when he rises it’s with a tide of water behind him.

“You noticed me,” he says, and laughs, eager, all sharp edges. “Well, sweetheart, let’s see if you can keep up.”

Rin doesn’t roll her eyes, but she wants to. “I can keep up, _sweetheart_,” she retorts, and draws a kunai. “Can you?”

The Swordsman doesn’t answer, but rushes her with the water leading.

“Protect Tazuna!” Rin calls, even as Naruto shouts, and then she dodges, a shunshin carrying her around behind the Swordsman in a blur. A kunai flung at his face is enough to get his attention, and she knocks aside another blow from his oversized sword, slips around it with all the speed she can manage, and snaps out a hand. A ball of coral surges up, then another, and she sends them whirling out with a touch of chakra. The Swordsman leaps them, hands flickering through signs, but Rin can feel the edge of _other_ that just split off. A sprouting web of coal catches the clone, popping it in a surge of water, and Rin leaps a sharp jet of water, lands, and lashes out, adding Isobu’s might behind it.

The shockwave ripples out, shattering stone, tearing earth and sending water crashing away, and balanced on the lake the Swordsman pauses, eyes narrowing.

“Fuck,” he says, and straightens, sword rising to guard. “Who the hell are you?”

Rin steps out onto the water, her sandals leaving faint ripples. Sloppy—she’s channeling too much chakra for fine control right now. But that’s fine; this isn't the sort of fight that needs finesse. “I'm Nohara Rin,” she says, and smiles at him, makes it light and easy and just as much a threat as a sword to the jugular. “Jounin of Konoha and leader of Team 7. Can I know who attacked us?”

The Swordsman frowns faintly, like he’s trying to place her. Rin isn't surprised he can't; Kiri probably doesn’t advertise their greatest failures, and all but giving one of their bijuu to an enemy village is a very large failure indeed. Still, the man looks her over like he’s taking notes for the next edition of the Bingo Book and says curtly, “Momochi Zabuza. You’ve got a hell of a counter there.”

Rin laughs a little, letting the coral covering her arms thicken to fill in the cracks left by his sword. “Thanks,” she says cheerfully, and it’s probably not good to practically taunt him like this, but he’s the one who attacked them. He didn’t think she was a threat. Rin is going to prove him wrong. “You’ve got a hell of a sword. You know, some people might think you were compensating.”

Zabuza rolls his eyes, hefting it. “Yeah, _that’s_ the first time I've heard that,” he says, unimpressed, and Rin laughs. Raises a hand, feeling Isobu strain forward with a ready rumble, and sets the lake to vibrating under their feet. A low-level hum, just enough to put Zabuza on edge as she grins at him. Silly, Kakashi calls that expression, and Rin has never denied it. He’s not the only one who can wear a mask.

“Sorry,” she says sweetly. “Sore spot?”

With a snort, Zabuza twists his blade, shaping a hand sign, and a spout of water rises, spinning threateningly. “Don’t worry, I’ll get even,” he promises, and drops it on her head with a short, sharp gesture.

Somewhere behind them, Sakura cries out, but Rin just laughs. She darts forward, slashing a hand up, and a shockwave shatters the jutsu before it can hit. Zabuza manages to block her kick on the flat of his blade, but the sword shudders dangerously, and he snarls as he heaves, throwing her back. Rin lets him move her, uses the momentum to leap up and over, and lands lightly on his shoulder before she drops down behind him, ducks a slash, and sweeps his feet out from under him.

He falls, dropping past the surface of the water, and Rin smiles.

“That’s not going to save you,” she says, and shapes a seal with one hand. A rising wind whips her hair around her face, lashes the water, and she channels it, drives it down like a spear to part the waters in a rush, but Zabuza is gone.

Rin might as well _be_ the water, though. She feels the step behind her, the surge of motion as the sword swings at her head, and spins. One hard punch knocks it wide, and her next catches Zabuza in the side of the face, hurling him away.

He lands hard, scrambles up. There’s blood on his cheek, and he wipes it away with a frown, but the look on his face when he meets her eyes is something Rin doesn’t see from a lot of opponents. Respect, she thinks, and it’s almost a surprise. Then again, Kiri nin look up to strength, especially in people who can meet them head-on.

“Shit.” Zabuza looks her over, then grins. Spits out a mouthful of blood and laughs. “Where the hell has Konoha been hiding you? You hit like a fucking mountain.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Rin says, giving him a grin, and settles herself ready to counter the next strike. “Who hired you to take out Tazuna?”

Zabuza snorts. “No one’s going to give me jobs if I run my mouth,” he scoffs. “Try again.”

_Give **me**_, Rin thinks, and can't help but frown. He’s not talking about Kiri as a village, he’s talking about finding jobs himself. but there's no scratch through his hitai-ate, marking him a missing-nin. That’s interesting, to say the least.

“Tell me and I’ll go easy on you,” she offers, halfway to teasing even though she means it.

Zabuza laughs at that, even if it has a bitter edge. “Easy’s boring,” he drawls, and grins at her. “You want me to give it up, you're going to have to make me, sweetheart.”

The blooming water prison _almost_ manages to take Rin by surprise. For half a second as it closes around her, there's a flare of panic, a touch of buried memory—

_Pretty thing,_ Isobu whisper to her, laughing. _All teeth_. And Rin laughs too, breathes out, balances her chakra in a whirling wash of violet and black, and tears the prison apart as simply as breathing.

“Manhandling does it for you?” she teases, and steps forward as Zabuza’s eyes widen with shock. “I can work with that.”

Something flinty, focused settles across Zabuza’s face, and his lips pull back from sharpened teeth. “You can _try_, sweetheart,” he challenges, and his chakra roars like a demon rising around him, all terror and tightly-bound fury. It’s not enough, though. Rin steps sideways around a sword-strike, steps back, and raises her arms.

Isobu roars in triumph, and the whole lake rises.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Rin tells the Swordsman, even as he desperately tries to summon a barrier as the world turns to sea. “You put up a good effort, but I'm far out of your league, _sweetheart_.”

The water crashes down, a tidal wave contained only by Rin's will, and washes the battlefield clear.

It’s dark and still by the time Zabuza wakes, a fire crackling in the middle of the camp. Rin watches him rouse, testing his bonds before he’s even fully conscious, and says, “Keep your voice down, please. My genin are sleeping.”

For a moment it seems like Zabuza is going to try to fake unconsciousness, but at length he opens his eyes, dark gaze boring into the trees above them. Breathes in, breathes out, and closes his eyes again.

“Fuck,” he says, ragged. Half-drowned, and Rin would be sorry, but being sorry is useless in a war, and some part of her still lives on a battlefield where the war never stops. It’s the same for Kakashi, too, she thinks. Or maybe what holds him isn't a war, but a cave, far away in Kusa, and the rocks that fell there.

“I can't let you harm our client,” she says instead, because that at least Zabuza will understand. It’s just a job, and she has to finish it.

Zabuza stays still, breath shuddering out on a sigh, and when Rin leans over him to check his breathing again, he looks up at her, grim and angry but also resigned.

“Don’t send my sword back to Kiri,” he says. “That fucker Yagura doesn’t deserve it. take it yourself, if you don’t know what else to do with it.”

Rin knows the look in his eyes. knows it desperately, intimately. It makes her smile, small and sad and tired, and she touches one of the deep scratches where her coral caught him in the cheek. “I'm not going to execute you. I just want the name of your employer. You're not working for Kiri anymore, right?”

He doesn’t ask how she knows, just glares at her through hooded eyes. “Fuck no,” he bites out, and then closes his eyes again, stubbornly silent.

Well, at the very least taciturn jerks are a thing Rin is well-versed in dealing with. She rolls her eyes a little, and says, “That chuunin who’s with you—the one hiding in the trees. He won't be able to save you.”

Zabuza’s eyes snap open, and suddenly every line of his body is taut, dangerous. He snarls, trying to roll like he’s going to throw himself at her, but Rin knows all the tricks and staked his hands and feet down with spears of coral, and they don’t move. With an impotent sound of rage, Zabuza wrenches at it, then growls, “What the fuck did you do to him?”

Unmoved, she meets his furious expression, and says evenly, “I didn’t hurt him. I haven’t even seen him. But I know he’s there, and if he tries to free you, I’ll stop him.”

Zabuza glares at her, breathing hard, and the strain in his shoulders must be clear by now, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Hisses through his teeth, gives one more jerk at the ropes, and then slumps back.

“Fuck you,” he spits. “It’s Gato. Drug kingpin trying to get all of Wave under his thumb. He’s the one who wants the Bridge-Builder dead.”

Reasonable, if Gato’s aim is to keep the island contained. Rin lets out a careful breath, then twists onto her knees and leans over Zabuza again, settling a hand on his bare shoulder. A touch of green colors the air, and she focuses on easing muscles, soothing the strain of having his arms tied over his head.

Zabuza watches her, eyes narrow, teeth not quite bared, and says, “You're vicious.”

No caveat. No _you’re vicious, even if you’re pretty_. Straightforward and blunt, with something like grudging respect in Zabuza’s face, and somehow that means more than awe in a thousand other opponents who can only see her as a pretty, nonthreatening kunoichi who hits harder than she apparently should.

Rin smiles, and says lightly, “Careful, or I might really try manhandling you. Most people don’t actually mean it when they call me that, and like I said. Flattery will get you everywhere.”

It makes Zabuza laugh, hoarse but amused, and he flexes his hands in the ropes, then gives Rin a grin that’s all teeth. “They must all be fucking blind, then. If you went one ounce harder you would’ve eaten me for dinner.”

“Tasty, tasty,” Rin teases, and trails her fingers over the thick curve of his bicep. She doesn’t mean it, not entirely; he’s a prisoner, and she’s hardly about to try anything while he’s tied up, but—it’s a pretty thought, isn't it?

Zabuza groans, tipping his head back, but the sound is amused. “Keep looking at me like that and I'm going to take you up on it,” he threatens.

Rin smiles, leans down until her hair just brushes his cheek, and watches his eyes flicker down to her mouth. “You know,” she says, “I can give you a _really_ good reason not to work for Gato anymore.”

“Oh yeah?” Zabuza is trying for skeptical, but his voice is a little too low too manage it, a little too interested.

Rin hums, tilts her head. Smiles, sweet and bright, and says with her lips almost touching his, “I think I like you, Zabuza. And I _really_ don’t enjoy killing people I like.”

Zabuza shivers, breath hitching. Rin laughs, kisses his cheek, and sits back on her knees. “Think about it,” she offers, and goes back to the seal she was working on, brush careful in the flickering darkness.

Lying still beside her, Zabuza breathes for a moment, then closes his eyes and tilts his head back, muttering a curse. He doesn’t make any attempt to get loose, though, and Rin hums the first few notes of an old lullaby as his breathing evens out, watching the seal take shape.

It’s a pretty thing, sweeping lines and jagged turns, sharp falls and careful rises, but—

Rin smiles, a touch of chakra dancing down her fingertips and sinking into the ink. A pretty thing, maybe, but it has teeth.


End file.
